Stimpacks and Twitching

[PaladinHeart]

You could always just lower the AP cost of firing the weapon, which would be more useful in a firefight than faster reloading.

But the reloading cost CAN be justified. Just thing you have to:
A. Dig in your pocket for the clip, rounds, etc.. Who would keep it in their hand? That would inferfere with combat performance. You would also still have to tussle with getting it out of a handy pocket, off your belt, etc..

B. Remove the spent casings or clip. This would take yet more time.

And finally
C. Put the new clip or bullets in.

So I think 2 aps is pretty cheap for ammo reloads. I think OTB mentioned that though. Anyway I don't really believe there would be much need to make reloading any faster or slower except that some weapons might be a bit more complicated and take longer to fix up. For safety's sake we can just assume that all the weapons have quick access to their ammunition housing and if a character has a hard time with it then their skill with that weapon type is low to reflect this (thus a misfire. Or perhaps you see them shoot but in reality they fumbled and lost a bullet while reloading..).

As for stims being less useful. I can't recall if this was mentioned but..

You could have the overdose level higher and last for several days if desired. After all it is often not very wise to take drugs/medicines very often IRL. I would imagine the effects of major drugs like those in FO would last for at least a day or two and even then it wouldn't be safe to take more at that time.

You could also have a drug permanently lower or raise certain stats, resists, etc.. Over extended use you could have psycho permanently build up a character's physical immunity but lower their intelligence by 1 point as a long term side effect.

[Viktor]

Sounds a bit like "special K" to me....

Um...you mean the breakfast cereal? (Maybe we should just call these things "Go Pills" or something. No, wait! That's been used...)

OTB

No. I mean the mix of ectasy and Ketamine (a battlefield/vetinary anesthetic) which which was very popular in UK rave culture a few years ago... Basically, it gave you the buzz to dance until your feet were bloody stumps, but you didn't care as you couldn't feel them anyway!

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

You could always just lower the AP cost of firing the weapon, which would be more useful in a firefight than faster reloading.

But the reloading cost CAN be justified. Just thing you have to:
A. Dig in your pocket for the clip, rounds, etc.. Who would keep it in their hand? That would inferfere with combat performance. You would also still have to tussle with getting it out of a handy pocket, off your belt, etc..

B. Remove the spent casings or clip. This would take yet more time.

And finally
C. Put the new clip or bullets in.

So I think 2 aps is pretty cheap for ammo reloads. I think OTB mentioned that though. Anyway I don't really believe there would be much need to make reloading any faster or slower except that some weapons might be a bit more complicated and take longer to fix up. For safety's sake we can just assume that all the weapons have quick access to their ammunition housing and if a character has a hard time with it then their skill with that weapon type is low to reflect this (thus a misfire. Or perhaps you see them shoot but in reality they fumbled and lost a bullet while reloading..).

I've always been in favour of making reloading more expensive AP wise than firing the weapon, especially for revolvers, shotguns and bolt action weapons which don't use clips. One thing about JA2 that I liked was that it cost 5APs to reload, or 10APs if you had the right type of ammo but in the wrong type of clip and needed to convert them. Also I'd make burst fire cheaper than a single shot, but having the single shot more accurate and giving burst fire greater aiming penalties. On the presumption that you'd take more time aiming with a single shot, and be more likely firing blindly when using burst fire. Though the big guns that have burst only and fire more bullets per burst would remain unchanged.

[PaladinHeart]

I see your point but FOT is quite different from the Jagged Alliance games. While a well aimed single shot would be effective in a low level firefight, the same well aimed single shot would be very ineffective compared to the less expensive burst in an all out fire fight between two experienced warriors. This was not as much an issue in Jagged Alliance since you could easily die in one well placed shot.

But you could make a special mod and/or compaign for FOT that would make your idea SOMEWHAT effective. Namely making shots have a critical chance of 100%, have a more accurate aim, etc..

I say somewhat because JA and FOT does not handle bullets the same way. A burst in FOT can use only one bullet and hit several enemies. JA uses a much more superior ballistics system than FOT. In FO games and FOT you basically fire an invisible force wave that goes unerringly to your target dependant on the chance to hit. This is most evident when you force fire on a target that has a 0% chance to hit and completely miss the target, but kill everything around it. The same action in a JA game would inevitably send a hail of bullets in the same direction but each target would be just as likely to be hit as the one you directed your fire at, due to the better ballistics engine. The JA2 games even support ricochet effects. Lets see FOT do that ;)

JA2 is superior in a tactical combat sort of way, but FOT is still more fun to play, for various reasons (I won't go into detail at the moment).

Lets just say that FOT does almost everything else right. With a ballistics engine it would be much more fun.

(BTW I don't consider anything that instantly goes from point A to B without a projectile as being ballistic).

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

I see your point but FOT is quite different from the Jagged Alliance games. While a well aimed single shot would be effective in a low level firefight, the same well aimed single shot would be very ineffective compared to the less expensive burst in an all out fire fight between two experienced warriors. This was not as much an issue in Jagged Alliance since you could easily die in one well placed shot.

I was actually only refering to the reloading times in JA2, my statement on burst fire vs aimed shots is just my take on how I believe the game should of been set up. Logically I believe that if you are bothering to fire a single shot, it's because your are taking the time to aim, burst fire is more often used in close ranges, or for suppression fire and in either case you are less likely to be aiming rather firing in the general direction of your target. It really depends on whether you believe that APs are representitive of the time it takes to point and shoot or the rate of fire of a weapon.

JA2 is superior in a tactical combat sort of way, but FOT is still more fun to play, for various reasons (I won't go into detail at the moment).

Lets just say that FOT does almost everything else right. With a ballistics engine it would be much more fun.

(BTW I don't consider anything that instantly goes from point A to B without a projectile as being ballistic).

I didn't like JA2's ballistic model, it made it bloody hard to hit anything even with mercs who were expert shots. But I'd agree that JA2 is superior tactically due to the fact you could use suppression fire, cut holes in fences, upgrade weapons, use explosives to create doorways and the fact they had working nightvision googles and breaklights. Though it badly needed mortar fired flares that light up the whole night sky. FOT really needs destroyable walls and doors.

[PaladinHeart]

Yes it does. In the original design for FO1 everything was suppose to be destructible but apparently they decided it would be too much trouble to implement.. (just check some old pictures from a gaming mag or such and you'll see the walls etc.. taking damage) I love games where you can completely tear a place apart such as the JA and X-Com games.

Ahh.. those good old guided mini nukes in X-com were loads of fun.

1st shot = hole in saucer

2nd shot = cleansed saucer

FOT manages this to an extent with barricades, which usually make a map a bit more interesting. Most of the maps from my RPG will probably reflect how much I enjoy blowing stuff up :)